As we begin a new semester here UW-La Crosse, I always seem to find myself reflecting on my time in college, so far, while attempting to discover who I am, what I want to be, and where am I going. I think about where I started, and I must consider how my life has changed between high school and now. As I have been doing so, I have realized a bulk of the friendships I formed in high school are no longer relevant in my current life.
Since starting college three years ago, I have made a few extremely close friends, all of whom I can’t imagine my life without and with whom I have established a very close friendship with. The truth of the matter is, as adolescents, we don’t realize the plethora of friendships we have made are not deeply rooted in anything largely significant until we start to drift apart from these people.
Therefore, here are five reasons why this mutual parting of ways occurs and you shouldn’t feel guilty, but blessed, they once were part of your life:
1. You don’t always have the same interests you did in high school.
As we mature, both the things we like and dislike are the very aspects that once held our relationships together.
2. Sometimes you mature while your friends do not.
Like most people, we learn from the mistakes we made in our teen years and consequently grow from them. As a result, we not only become more comfortable in the world around us, but we also mature significantly.
The point is, it becomes apparent that this growth is not going to occur anytime soon. It becomes an obstructing force upon you, delaying you from growing as a person. At this point, the divide in maturity levels eventually causes a breakdown in the bond the two friends once shared.
3. Your college friends know the improved and adult you.
Your friends you have made in college know you for the new you. They are untouched by memories of who you once were. They are the people we have built new relationships with, which are founded upon our new mutually shared interests, likes and dislikes.
4. You don’t see each other as much as you used to, and that’s unavoidable.
You are no longer seeing your many friends every weekday. This new divide between your lives can create a falling-out—if the relationship wasn’t very solid to begin with— and can end with you losing touch.
5. Things happen and people drift apart. That’s okay.
Sometimes friendships simply come to an end for no reason other than the fact that people move on with their lives and leave relationships that are no longer beneficial to them in the past.
Of course, there are the high school friends we do keep. These are the people who know you inside and out and have grown with you over time. Personally, my best friend is one of these high school friends that I didn’t grow close to until I entered college. We’ve grown as people, and differing in many ways, we are still seen as the same people in all ways that matter: our morals, our personalities and our senses of humor.
Just know: It’s okay to let people go. In fact, it is often necessary to move on and flourish as an ever-changing person.